Businesses and consumers are immersed in a new age of technology. Almost everything we do can be done digitally. This way of the digital world is convenient for all users, and now almost necessary for small local businesses to stay connected with their customers. Small businesses already have to compete with big corporations, and that rivalry continues online when trying to gain web traffic.
When you take your business online, what do you want to see? People! You want people clicking left and right, scrolling up and down. You want people to interact with your products and services and leave their visit to your site knowing how you are better than your competitors. Having people visit your website is traction to your business. When more people know about your company, more revenue is made. Easy-peasy, right?
Well… maybe not so much for the average business owner. No need to worry–the professionals at Duneland Media are passionate about helping local, small business owners find success online! Read on to learn more about harnessing this power.
The Science Behind Growing Your Business’s Online Presence
Bringing your business to life on the internet is much more than getting a domain name and creating a simple one-page site. There is a science behind growing your business online.
Some may ask, “How does this work?” or “What is this magical science you speak of?” We are here to give you the run-down of the basics of SEO and how this cost-effective practice has the power to grow your business.
“What the heck is SEO?” is a good place to start.
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Let’s break that down even further. A search engine is an online platform used to find information. The two most commonly used search engines in the US are Google or Bing. Optimization simply means making the best or most effective use of a resource. Put together, SEO is the practice of increasing both the quantity and quality of website traffic through search engines.
The biggest way to perform successful SEO is to know your audience. Who are you trying to reach? If you’re a bakery, you’d want your website to have the appropriate keywords and content to attract someone looking for a cake decorator for their wedding, for example. Knowing your audience and their search habits and then tailoring your website to them benefits your business.
People control how these search engines work. Your goal as a business owner is to learn what your audience is searching for, what answers they are pursuing, what words they’re using to search for these answers, and what style of content they prefer. By knowing their intentions, you can effectively deliver your products or services on your website to be crawled by search engines to show your audience.
However, SEO is much more than having a ton of viewers on your page. You are seeking these viewers to gain conversions.
“Conversions? Like the ones I did in math class?” No! Not that complicated.
Let’s use the bakery business for example. When someone visits the bakery website, scrolls through all the sweets, and ends up ordering a dozen cupcakes, that is a conversion! The visitor was converted into a customer. SEO gives you this opportunity to make more conversions, leading to more money for your business.
“So I just need to whip up a website? Cool! That sounds easy.” Not so fast there, pal.
A profitable website requires more love and attention than those free websites you can find and create in a half hour or less. For your website to gain all this traffic we speak of, it needs to appeal to the user and the search engines. Your job is to impress these search engines with your relevant, informative website. Once these search engines crawl your site and decide that they like what they see, you have a higher chance of being shown off to all the users who are searching away. Search engines love attention. It’s important to keep consistently showing them updated, functional content for the benefit of your website to continue to get crawled.
“Well, can you tell me what these search engines are into?” Oh yeah, let us spill the beans.
- Be approachable.
- Obviously, you want your website to be seen and accessed. Once they can spot you, search engines crawl, sort, and rank your site. The easier it is for them to find you, the better. A simple way to ensure that search engines can crawl your material is submitting your site through Google Search Console to be indexed. Indexing is the process that search engines use to store and organize the content they found during the crawling process of your website. By using Google Search Console, you have the ability to monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot your site’s presence in search engine results.
- Be relevant
- They get bored easily. If they are constantly seeing the same thing all the time, they’ll move on to the next website that mocks yours. Harsh, I know. They aren’t shallow, though. They prioritize relevant, compelling content. If you can answer someone’s question with even more information, they are impressed.
- Be a good listener.
- Like we mentioned before, you must have an idea of what your audience likes and how they look for it. This is where keywords come into play. Keywords are a staple in making sure you are noticed by the right audience. Say what you know they want to hear.
- Be swift and adaptable.
- Search engines really appreciate it if you’re quick on your feet. If your content loads fast, and you’re easy to browse through, they’ll love it. You also want your website to be adjustable to work just as well on desktop or via smartphone.
- Be popular.
- It might sound surface level, but you gotta have some share-worthy content to spread around! The more shares and attention you get, the better.
- Be able to be identified.
- It’s a bare minimum requirement, but an essential one. Having a title, URL, and description to your website gives you an identity. You don’t want users or search engines to be confused on who you are. Don’t catfish them.
- Be yourself.
- If you stick to everything we mentioned before, while maintaining your own authentic branding, the search engines will shine a spotlight on you.
If you have all of these incredible qualities, there is no doubt about search engines passing you by.
With SEO, the end goal is to expose your brand organically. Organic search results are the natural, high ranking websites you see from searches on search engines. As a business owner, you would be happy to hear that organic search results are free. These are earned through successful SEO.
A little formula you can use to make it easier:
Investing in SEO overtime = Organic search results = Return on investment
“Um, can you repeat everything you just said?” No worries! Instead, I’ll give you this little cheat sheet you can print and keep in your pocket if you’d like.
This is an easier-to-understand graphic of what we have mentioned to see how these are broken down in steps. These steps are needed to be taken to reach the highest tier of SEO success. As with most structures, the foundation is the most essential layer to perfect before you attempt to reach the top. SEO is a process–it won’t happen overnight, but your patience will pay off.
For small businesses SEO is the easiest, bang-for-your-buck method to grow and maintain your business online. With these tactics, you’ll end up with a user-friendly website, more visitors that will hopefully convert to customers, and increased legitimacy for your business.
Investing in this science can take your small business to the next level. Don’t pass up this opportunity to grow your business with SEO. Don’t have time to deal with all the steps? Trust me, we get it. Contact Duneland Media today and we’ll be more than happy to be your SEO scientists.
